Current Affairs Questions

Explanation :

• The report of the panel on 'Offshore Rupee Market' headed by former RBI deputy governor Usha Thorat has been made public on 8^th August, 2019.
• The panel was set up by the RBI in February, 2019, to examine the issues related to the offshore rupee markets in depth and recommend appropriate policy measures for incentivizing non-residents to access the onshore foreign exchange market.
• It has recommended that the "competent authorities may examine the issue of taxation" with the objective of overcoming gaps between tax regime in India and other major international financial centres (Singapore, Hong Kong and London) to the extent possible, and thereby incentivising non-residents to hedge in the onshore market.
• Another major suggestion is that the know Your Customer(KYC) registration may be centralised across the financial market with uniform documentation requirement.

Source: Civil Services Chronicle Online

Explanation :

Explanation:

• On 8^th August, 2019, India celebrated the 77^th anniversary of Quit India Movement.
• The Quit India Movement, also known as the August Movement was a Civil Disobedience Movement launched by Gandhi for complete independence from British rule.
• At the Working Committee meeting in Wardha in July 1942, the Congress accepted that the movement must move into an active phase.
• On 8^th August, 1942, the All-India Congress Committee met in Gowalia Tank Maidan (August Kranti Maidan) in Bombay to ratify the Working Committee’s decision, formally launching the movement.
• The most powerful, slogan of the Indian National Movement was “Quit India”, or “Bharat Chhoro” - the call and command that Mahatma Gandhi gave to the British rulers of India 77 years ago.

Source: Civil Services Chronicle Online

Explanation :

• On 6^th August, 2019, the Delhi government launched a project that seeks to record oral histories of the city as told by its senior citizens.
• Titled ‘Oral History Programme’, the project aims to document the history of the city from the perspective of its inhabitants.
• The project, undertaken by Delhi Archives in collaboration with Ambedkar University, is an attempt to democratize knowledge by recording stories told by hundreds of common people in Delhi from different strata of society over the next two years.
• It was in the ‘80s that the Delhi Archives department first began an oral history project by interviewing 56 personalities about the city, its history and changing nature.

Source: Civil Services Chronicle Online

Explanation :

• Recently ‘Quick Reaction Surface-to-Air (QRSAM) Missile, developed by DRDO was test fired.
• It uses solid-fuel propellant and has a range of 25-30 km, with the capability of engaging multiple targets.
• It is equipped with indigenously developed phased array radar, Inertial Navigation System, Data Link and RF seeker and electronic countermeasures against jamming by aircraft radars.
• It is an all-weather missile that will help the Indian Navy in Inertial Navigation System.

Source: Civil Services Chronicle Online

Explanation :

• Against the backdrop of nearly 60,000 pending cases in the Supreme Court, a bill to increase the number of judges in the top court from 30 to 33 was introduced in LokSabha on 5^th August, 2019.
• As of now, the Supreme Court has a sanctioned strength of 30 judges, plus the Chief Justice of India (CJI) -31 judges.
• Once the bill gets parliamentary approval, its sanctioned strength will go up to 33, plus the CJI, according to the Supreme Court (Number of Judges) Amendment Bill.
• Back in 1988, the judge strength of the SC was increased from 18 to 26, and then again after two decades in 2009, it was increased to 31, including the CJI, to expedite disposal of cases to keep pace with the rate of institution.

Source: Civil Services Chronicle Online

Explanation :

• On 30^th July, 2019, RBI imposed a penalty on two online payment solutions providers Mobikwik Systems and Hip Bar for non-compliance of regulatory guidelines.
• Mobikwik Systems Private Limited has been slapped a fine of Rs. 15 lakh while Hip Bar Pvt. Ltd faced a fine of Rs. 10.85 lakh.

Source: Civil Services Chronicle Online

Explanation :

• On 29^th July, 2019, Pakistan has opened a 1,000-year-old Hindu temple in eastern city Sialkot for worship for the first time since partition.
• The ShawalaTeja Singh temple, located in city’s Dhaarowal locality, some 100-km from Lahore.
• The Evacuee Trust Property Board, which looks after the holy places of minorities in Pakistan, has opened ShawalaTeja Singh temple after the partition on the demand of the local Hindu community.

Source: Civil Services Chronicle Online

Explanation :

• Gujarat ranks first in the country with total 97 megawatts (MW) of installed rooftop solar capacity (as of July 2019).
• Maharashtra (198.52 MW)and Tamil Nadu (151.62 MW) ranks second and third respectively in terms of installed rooftop solar capacity.
• On 25^th July, 2019, the government set ambitious target for the installation of Rooftop Solar projects (RTS) of 40,000 MW by 2022 in the country including installation of RTS on rooftop of houses.
• As of July, 2019, over 1700 MW of grid-connected rooftop systems has been installed in the country.

Source: Civil Services Chronicle Online

Explanation :

• On 24^th July, 2019, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) National Institute for Medical Statistics (ICMR-NIMS), in partnership with Population Council, launched the National Data Quality Forum (NDQF).
• NDQF will integrate learnings from scientific and evidence-based initiatives and guide actions through periodic workshops and conferences.
• Its activities will help establish protocols and good practices of data collection, storage, use and dissemination that can be applied to health and demographic data, as well as replicated across industries and sectors.
• NDQF aims to bring together relevant stakeholders, subject matter experts, industry leaders, decision makers, and data scientists / analysts onto a common platform. This platform will be guided by the direction provided by a high level steering committee and operationalized with the help of a technical advisory group composed of subject matter experts.

Source: Civil Services Chronicle Online

Explanation :

• On 23^rd July, 2019, the Ministry of Culture initiated an ambitious project of the digitization of the collections of the Museums under it with the twin purpose of making effective utilization of technology in museum management and bringing the collections of these museums closer to the public by making them available for online viewing over the internet.
• In this endeavor, the Ministry of Culture, through the technical expertise of Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C–DAC) Pune and the Art Institute of Chicago got standardized software entitled "Jatan" for implementation in its Museums.
• There are 48 Archaeological Site Museums under Archaeological Survey of India out of which two Archaeological Site Museums, namely - Velha Goa and Nagarjunakonda (Andhra Pradesh), have been digitised during the first phase through Jatan.

Virtual Museum

• A virtual museum helps in digital preservation and providing online access to heritage information resources for education, research and tourism. It can make the museum antiquities accessible online for the benefit of tourists, teachers, students and researchers.
• Museum antiquities can provide information about history of the civilization, lifestyle, culture, traditions, ancient knowledge of science and technology and overall human evolution.

Source: Civil Services Chronicle Online